


Better Wisdoms

by kylee



Series: Put Me In Your Heart For Friend [3]
Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: (And a Bad Husband), (King Hamlet Was a Bad Parent), F/M, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Past Abuse, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:47:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26275126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylee/pseuds/kylee
Summary: It's a kind of love story.
Relationships: Claudius/Gertrude (Hamlet), Claudius/Laertes (Hamlet)
Series: Put Me In Your Heart For Friend [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901488
Kudos: 5





	Better Wisdoms

**Author's Note:**

> The characterization for this fic is based _very much_ on the 2013 [Bethany Lutheran College](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz6GL6AFphU) _Hamlet_ , and thus won't fit every interpretation of _Hamlet_. But I happen to like this one.

Theirs isn't a passionate love, and he knows. He's had this share of passion, ill-advised flings, wicked wits and gifts -- he's fallen into bed with men and women he hated as much as loved. But Gertrude he adores. He adores her with that simple, childlike love from when she was a foreign princess brought to be his brother's betrothed, a kind and patient sister who always smiled at him.

Now he knows the effort in that smile, how hard it was to be so kind, so patient and attentive, when all her kindness could be cast aside by her husband in a moment's temper. And Claudius can't regret what he did, can't repent what's past -- but when she shrinks from him, he stoops down to join her.

He adores her.

"My queen and lady," Claudius asks, carefully, "what would you think ... if I gave favor to young lord Laertes?"

She cannot mistake his meaning, when Laertes has already crossed the king with counter, in a riotous head, gun in hand -- it cannot be some trifling courtiers' matter. And she saw, as well as Claudius, the towering height of Laertes's grief when he beheld his mad, singing sister. "I think it would be kindness."

"Is that all?"

Shaking her head, Gertrude touches his cheek. "Fear me not. I know thy heart."

She doesn't. She doesn't know anything of his heart, of his crimes broad blown, as flush as May -- but she accepts him. Trusts him. And he has never done anything, truly, to betray that trust.

He has only tried to save her.

The prince Hamlet is as much a threat to her as the king was. As selfish, importunate -- as violent. And if he told her, she would only make the excuses she was raised up making, that such men are ruled by their passions --

And Claudius is no better. That, alone, gives him pause. But theirs is not a passionate love. Young Laertes tempts him to passion, in the way he would dare damnation, but Claudius is calculating and hates his calculation, his cowardice -- he would never fire a gun without first hiding it behind his back. Between the two, Gertrude and Laertes, he will find no salvation for himself.

He seeks none. He will make the world they both deserve, and commend them to heaven, as he falls into hell.


End file.
